Hudson Yards Coming Into Focus

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The 52-story tower 10 Hudson Yards opened this spring, one of several new buildings planned for Hudson Yards. It is headquarters for the luxury goods company Coach.CreditCreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

It’s happening slowly, and there are still rough edges. But building by building, Hudson Yards is finally taking shape.

About a half-dozen major apartment buildings, including a condominium, are rising across an industrial swath of the Far West Side, which for decades was lined with parking lots and horse stables, and which developers are trying to turn into the next “it” destination.

“The entire landscape is completely different from what it was a year ago, much less 10 years ago,” said Cary Hooper, who has watched the progress from the windows of Enoch’s Bike Shop, where he works and which is owned by his father, Enoch Hooper. The shop has been on 10th Avenue, near West 37th Street, for about a decade.

“It has really blossomed into its own neighborhood,” added Mr. Hooper, 29, who is also a resident of the area.

Since most of the vicinity was rezoned in 2005, several rental towers, as well as office buildings and hotels, have popped up across the roughly 45-block area, which by some definitions sweeps west of Eighth Avenue, from West 30th to 42nd Streets.

Construction has happened in spurts, mostly between 2005 and 2013, but since then, few sizable residential developments have opened.

Even now, years will pass before some of the latest crop of buildings welcomes residents. The shimmering 910-foot condo from the Related Companies and the Oxford Properties Group under construction at 11th Avenue and West 30th Street is not going to have lights in its windows until 2018, even though sales begin this month.

Some buildings are going up on gritty blocks that not too long ago seemed uninhabitable. For example, a 700-foot rental from Brookfield Properties that is scheduled to open next summer on a section of West 31st Street is next to an access road for the Lincoln Tunnel.

A bold transformation was the goal of city officials when they rezoned the largely industrial area. Though many of the city’s top developers have toeholds in the neighborhood, Related and Oxford control about seven of the area’s 45 blocks, running west of 10th Avenue, from West 30th to 34th Streets.

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The Far West Side’s changing landscape, seen from the High Line, includes new buildings like 10 Hudson Yards, with the angled roof, and 15 Hudson Yards, just out of the ground, at center.CreditPablo Enriquez for The New York Times

Most of that acreage will sit atop rail yards. Platforms covering the rails on the eastern half of the site have been completed, and the platforms on the western half are scheduled to be built next year.

The first residential building to go up on Related and Oxford’s 28-acre development site, 15 Hudson Yards, in the eastern half, is a creation of some of the designers who worked on the High Line park, which winds past the building’s base. The building will offer 391 apartments across 67 stories. Of those apartments, 285 will be market-rate condos and include a super’s unit, while 106, under an agreement with the city, will be affordable rentals pegged to the median income in the area.

Sizes range from one-bedrooms, which start at 850 square feet, to four-bedrooms, which start at 2,900 square feet. There are also duplex penthouses, with up to 26-foot ceilings and 270-degree views, courtesy of windows curved like clover leaves.

But champions of the project are just as quick to point out the attractions outside. The entirety of Related and Oxford’s Hudson Yards megaproject won’t be completed until 2024, and it will ultimately offer 14 acres of open space, a one-million-square-foot mall with 16 restaurants, and the Shed, an arts center that will be physically connected to 15 Hudson Yards.

There’s also the High Line, which despite often being crowded with tourists, is a handy walkway to next-door West Chelsea and beyond, according to David Rockwell, the founder and chief executive of the Rockwell Group. “It will absolutely be an amenity,” he said.

One-bedrooms start at $1.95 million at 15 Hudson Yards, where the average price per square foot is around $3,300, developers say. Rentals, which will be clustered on eight lower floors, will be awarded via a lottery.

In contrast, the average square foot price for condos in the area through July was $2,106, according to data prepared by the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which looked at the zone bounded by West 23rd to West 37th Streets, west of Eighth Avenue.

But if 15 Hudson Yards may be pricey for the West Side, its prices are lower than those on Billionaires’ Row in Midtown, where new apartments can go for more than $6,000 a square foot. “The way I look at it, we are delivering as good as, if not better, product for half of the price,” compared with some more-established areas, said Jeff T. Blau, Related’s chief executive. “This is the right product, and the right price point.”

Though his team plans more condos for its sprawling site, rentals will be dominant, like Brookfield’s, at 435 West 31st Street, across Tenth Avenue. The as-yet-unnamed high-rise, which soars 62 stories, has 844 apartments, 675 of which will be leased at market-rate rents while 169 are considered affordable and reserved for people in certain income bands.

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A rendering of what 15 Hudson Yards, in foreground, will look like when it is completed.CreditRelated-Oxford

Rents at the building have not been set yet, said David Cheikin, a Brookfield executive vice president.

The rental is part of Manhattan West, a development over two city blocks, from West 31st to West 33rd Street, and from Ninth to 10th Avenues. Mostly office space, the project, which will surround a two-acre park and offer 240,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, isn’t expected to be complete until 2020.

Piling on the extras is necessary, in part, to keep tenants entertained in a place that’s still a hodgepodge of cranes and sidewalk sheds, Mr. Cheikin said. “We want to make sure it’s self-sustaining,” he added.

Like Brookfield’s rental tower, a 225-unit rental building from the Imperial Companies and Shorenstein Properties, at a site with the current address of 509 West 38th Street, is also scheduled to open next year. And about a year from now, a pair of all-market-rate rentals from Joy Construction and Maddd Equities, both on West 35th Street, will also open. One, at No. 411, will have 186 studios to two-bedrooms, while the other, at No. 445, will have 118 studios to two-bedrooms, said Eli Weiss, Joy’s director of development.

Other projects are closer to completion. In October, leasing will begin for 555Ten, a building at West 41st Street from the Extell Development Company with 598 studios to three-bedrooms, including a super’s unit, across 52 stories, as well as a rooftop pool.

People who live in the area, or plan to, might also be heartened by the opening last September, after delays, of a new subway station for the 7 train, whose line was extended to offer service to a subway-starved area.

And, three blocks of the Hudson Park and Boulevard, a six-block ribbon of open spaces planned for between 10th and 11th Avenues, are also welcoming visitors between West 33rd and West 36th Streets, adding needed greenery.

But the greatest changes might be to the skyline. All told, 64 buildings of all types have been completed or are under construction in the once low-slung area since that 2005 rezoning, said Michael Meola, a partner at BJH Advisors, a real estate consulting firm active in the area. Mr. Meola has also worked for the Hudson Yards Development Corporation, the entity overseeing the Hudson Yards project.

The recent projects bring the grand total of units either finished or under construction in the area to about 10,700, out of an expected 20,000, Mr. Meola said, adding, “it’s a remarkable accomplishment.”